The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop has anyone had experience

installing high beam and turn indicators into little holes in the dash? I bought the three LED lights and want drill the holes just above the two gauges on the dash. I know I won't have more than one chance to do it right. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to drill these little holes without screwing up my dash?
led pen lights

Jim, I too have used LED micro lights for the turn and high beams in the location you're suggesting.
Mine are smaller 6mm(1/4") approx.
I still need to get a blue one for main beams.
I'll try and get some pics tonight when I get home from work.
You need to watch about your line of vision, they're really bright!
My turn signals light up the whole cab!

To quote an often used saying "measure twice cut/drill once" !!

Thanks John,
As for the led's being too bright, I wonder if you could reduce the amount of light by lightly coating the lens with something like wood stain. Just a thought...

Jim, here's the pics as promised.
Sorry the quality's not great.
LED dash lights.

As I say I will add two more for the engine warning lights as soon as I've worked out how to wire them.
I'm relying on the gauges at the moment.

Good idea about the woodstain, I suppose you could also use some form of nail polish too,although I'm not sure if that would affect any plastics involved.

I presume there may be some form of resistor you could add to the wiring,but that's a subject i'm not too familiar with.....

Thanks for the pics John. Was it hard to drill your holes with the steering wheel in the way? I too would like to install engine lights somewhere. I checked these led's and the light intensity is very mild.
I have installed led courteous lights under the dash and tonight I will install a light dimer with a control allowing a 3 second to 60 second delay.

I took the wheel off Jim, it's just a ratty old thing I fitted to steer the truck around meantime,it doesn't even fit the boss i've got properly anyway.

The added bonus is the tilt function,I can lower the column right down out the way when I do the engine warning lights lights.

1. When you find your location, use a center punch to make sure the drill stays where it belongs.

2. I'd use a step drill, not a twist drill. Much easier to regulate.

3. Cover the affected area with masking tape and mark your locations on that and then drill. Protection against oopsies.

4. Finally, as stock as your interior looks, I vote you find another location. I hate to see something on that dash that looks added on. Just my opinion. Are you brave enough to disassemble your gauges and try and mount them in the gauge face? Not sure if they would fit, but something to look into. But if not, I do like Jockbolter's location. Same place I was thinking.

Mine has the large rectangular dash insert so it was easy to drill into that for my indicator lights and still have it look intentional. I used the micro LED's.

"4. Finally, as stock as your interior looks, I vote you find another location. I hate to see something on that dash that looks added on. Just my opinion. Are you brave enough to disassemble your gauges and try and mount them in the gauge face? Not sure if they would fit, but something to look into. But if not, I do like Jockbolter's location. Same place I was thinking."

That thought is what has delayed my doing this. I like the idea of putting them in the gauges but I'm not sure how stable they would be in there.
I'm open for suggestions as to where else to put them.

You could weld up the hole for the original Highbeam bulb and redrill for the LED. Then it would shine through the original red lens in the gauge.

Gosh Vern, I'm confused, I don't have an original highbeam hole. I guess I might be able to remove the speedo gauge and put one or two led's in there. I'm out of town and will check it out when I get back to Dallas.

look closely at top dead center, that's where mine is.

My style of Classic Instruments doesn't have the high beam indicator.